GovWire

This toolkit has been developed to support frontline practitioners to safeguard children and young people under the age of 18 from sexual and criminal exploitation. This includes social workers, police officers, housing officers, education staff, healthcare staff, charity staff, and others.

Additionally, the toolkit sets out supportive information to assist information sharing and multi-agency working as well as intelligence and evidence gathering and profiling.

Everyone who engages with children has a part to play in tackling child exploitation, not just those with statutory powers. It is important that all those who engage with children recognise and advocate for the use of available statutory powers, even where it may only be police or local authorities who can put them in place.

When using this toolkit, all practitioners should have as their primary focus:

• the experiences of the victims involved
• the views of the victims
• the impact any chosen approach may have on them
• the risk of further harm to them, possible future victims or the wider community

This toolkit is focused on child exploitation, although some of the tools listed can be used to disrupt exploitation of adults too.

The government continues to review and adjust legislation to strengthen the criminal justice system, therefore some tools referenced in this toolkit may change based on alterations to their legislative basis. Where this is currently likely to occur, caveats have been added in the document. Any updates to the legislation referenced in this toolkit is available online at Legislation.gov.uk.